Has Tony Blair shifted far right?

[WildEnergySupplier]

Tony Blair was always a warmonger with Iraq, but he seems to have gone full on far right / Reform now, criticising Starmer for not jumping in with Trump and the US on Iran.

He's saying we should have let them use our bases straight away and "show up" for America no matter what.

He also said Labour has made mistakes by spending more on welfare, focussing on Net Zero, increasing taxes on businesses..

Has he completely lost the plot? This sounds like proper far right policy to me.

I used to think Blair was centre-ground New Labour, but this feels like he's shifted hard right. In fact it's giving me proper far right / racist vibes.

It’s interesting that you consider these views far right.

I think the definition of the way ‘far right’ is used has shifted completely. Tony Blair is a centrist.

Whilst you are technically correct with definitions, this poster has never ever been rude to anyone.

He is centrist indeed. And what he said is so spot on. I wish someone in current government listened to him, this could change everything and save us from Reform.

It's very telling that Starmer did not respond and Andy just shouted "inequality" and he "will prepare a careful response". Means we're in for another 3 years and 2 months of redistribution. Then - God help us.

Countries viewed as having successful immigration policies are:
Australia
New Zealand
Singapore
Switzerland

All of which have tightly controlled migration with selective entry systems with a strong emphasis on economic contributions.

Countries seen as unsuccessful on migration include:
Feance
UK
Italy
Greece
Spain
United States

Thank you. That was an interesting read.

Absolutely agree

Australia
New Zealand
Singapore
Switzerland

I'm unable to comment on Aus and NZ, but Singapore and Switzerland are exceptionally difficult to get into. They don't accept any refugees and only accept very high value immigration (professionally or business /wealth wise). Same approach is impossible to implement without ID cards and fundamental rethink of UK position on refugees.

Get more off welfare & into work , so that I don’t have to fund their lifestyle choices. Stop penalising businesses & forcing them to make redundancies . Back Ms Mahmood with her reduction of illegal immigration .

Indeed @Imdunfer

@BIossomtoesif you increase the number of people doing a job without the amount of work done by those people increasing proportionately, this results in a drop in productivity. Unfortunately, the public sector has been experiencing this for many years - the Public Accounts Conmittee has been saying for years that public sector productivity has barely moved. One thing that might make NHS productivity better would be to have more joined up admin and record keeping systems, but this would likely be more productive by putting admin people out of employment (and ideally freeing that money up for medical equipment and professionals) - it really matters whether people are employed doing the right jobs in the right way and how much they are incentivised to do.

Aus is quite tough and doesn’t have ID cards. I don’t think they’re necessary. It’s quite hard if you’re not there legally still.

No, he isn’t. Don’t agree with him on Iran, but the rest is pretty much accurate. I stopped voting Labour when they had Corbyn, and still struggle to vote for them. Blair did amazing, progressive things for this country and had vision. I’m not seeing any of that from any party now.

But we do need to cut the welfare bill? It’s completely unsustainable. Especially the triple lock. Cutting welfare is not “far right” its an absolute economic necessity, so that released funds can be used for positive benefit - NHS, building social housing, infrastructure etc. Or to cut tax. All of which have a stronger multiplier than continued over spending on welfare.

Passport and driving licenses are the primary forms of i.d. in NZ. There's a Kiwi Access card which is optional for those who don't have the above but is only held by a small percent of the population. They have tough immigration rules.

My shock is what he as a supposed Labour man is proposing and with whom, not about whether or not the welfare Bill needs reducing.

You're shocked? But you started the thread saying that the op shouldn't be shocked? What changed?

Thank you for this input. What I tried to say is that you can't control migration without reliable photo ID, be it ID card, driving license or passport.

I didn't start the thread.

I thought I made it perfectly clear that what I was shocked about what what I read this morning in the paper about collaborating with the Tories to reduce the welfare bill.

I actually can see a scenario when ultra left Labour move to Green, right Tory join Reform, as a lot have done already, and we end up with two relatively centrist parties. If we're saved from outright Reform majority in 2029, I can see Labour and Tory joining coalition. I'd prefer this much more than any other realistic scenario. Girl can dream

We don't tax billionaires but we do expect people with health needs who cannot work for them to survive a cost of living crisis.

@WildEnergySupplier how do you think the government should go about taxing billionaires?

Didn't you notice at the time that he was the best Conservative Prime minister we'd had in ages?

Why is it a far right fever dream? Women in some countries aren't allowed to show their faces. Unless I'm woefully misinformed, this is just the situation.

@WildEnergySupplier it would be really interesting for you to watch the Triggernometry episode with Lucy Biggers. I've not heard of her, but it was a really interesting episode.

We do tax billionaires! What a load of rubbish!

oh, this again.

We do tax billionaires, as much as we possibly can.

Someone on another thread posted a link showing that at present we have about 170 billionaires in UK with their wealth totalling about 620bn (give or take, I'm too lazy to search this link now). Their message was - look, so much money, let's tax it, we'll have a great life for all.
A few points that poster failed to notice:

• both the number of UK billionaires and their total wealth has been steadily declining over the last 5 years, average rate about 6%, but then 12% decline pa since Labour came into power
• if you tax all UK billionaires at 100%, take everything they own, you'll only have enough to pay for two years of welfare bill, that's it, money gone in just two years.

What's next? taking into account that the world will be watching and no one ever, in the next century or so, will invest a broken penny in UK? won't ever start a business here, won't go and build productive career. What are you going to do then? when you redistributed everything and finally run out of other peoples money?

If ANYONE is being racist, I will call them out.

I don't care who goes squealing to Mumsnet about it.

Correct.